Heads up, I'm about to go on a tear about the firing of Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress. She was in the ninth year of a ten-year appointment. She was the first professional librarian to hold the position in decades. Her leadership transformed the institution to help it keep up with the rapid changes of the information landscape. Dr. Hayden is an exemplar of what it means to be a librarian. Also, as a woman of color, her leadership of a white-dominated field cannot be overstated. Her visibility and openness made what I do for a living far more visible to the communities we serve all over the country.

Her firing is a travesty. I was heartened to see others in my field rally around her through petitions, calls to congress, and many think pieces. There was no reason to fire her - despite what the White House claims. The White House assertions are willful misunderstandings of what the Library of Congress and libraries in general are for. I'm glad those in my field are forcefully calling out this disgraceful action and demanding her reinstatement.

Why is this important? Well, the library of CONGRESS serves CONGRESS. It's a part of the legislative branch, not the executive. The president has no say over LOC or any of its subunits - like the copyright office. More importantly, LOC is charged with being the warehouse for and preserver of knowledge. A new head - who answers only to one man with zero respect for actual truth - will do incalculable harm to the collections and actions of the institution.

The truth is the truth. It should be protected and not warped to suit one petty little man's grievances. LOC is charged with providing ACCURATE information to Congress. The Congressional Research Service goes deep on any topic or question asked. Any change to the reality that is shared could irreparably damage foreign relations and policy decisions. 

Furthermore, what any congressional office asks LOC is kept private. While librarians may not have the legal protections of a relationship like attorney-client privilege, we do take privacy seriously. Hell, I have worked with some students for years and I still don't know their names. It's not my business. I'm here to get you access to what you need without prejudice or judgement. That is the only way that people can feel comfortable asking us difficult questions.

So I was damn proud when the persons the President appointed as replacements were rebuffed by library staff at the door. While the law is on the library's side, I believe that our professional ethics also demanded such action. You do not send a fox to work in a hen house. The collections and work of LOC are too important.

It's finals week at my university. Each day is a complete unknown. It could be incredibly busy or I could watch tumbleweeds roll past the desk. There is no rhyme or reason as to what each day could look like. 

But, one morning, I did get to go really into the weeds with a student who was trying to citation chain articles. She was working on a lit review and needed a lot of metanalyses and the like. She came to the desk with one article and was trying to figure out where to go from there. I told her all she needed to do was point out which citations she was interested in. I could then work citation by citation to help her track down each piece. 

She thought she had to figure that all out by herself. Since she's interested in grad school, I told her to sit by the desk and watch me work. That way, she could learn all the ways librarians try to track down known items.

Spoiler alert - it's a lot of browser tabs.

Would it have been faster and less messy to do this on my own? Yes. But was the student grateful she had some new things to try on her own? Also, yes. 

That was a 45-minute reference transaction, but it's exactly what we're there for. 

I've been waiting for two books to come in from my local public library. They're both romantasy and I can't wait to get my hands on them. Unfortunately, the library only has a few copies of these titles so I've been waiting for over two months.

In the meantime, I've decided to just read random books I already own that I can stop at any time. The only problem with this is that I'm not in the mood to read these titles. I'm not eager to open the covers and dive into these pages. I find myself either falling asleep immediately or just staring at the pages - bored. 

I want to enjoy my reading. I want to be excited to see what happens next or to learn something new. Instead, I'm merely tolerating things. 

I know this is just a little bit of a rut, but I don't like it.

How do you handle waiting for a book you want to read?

My coworker joined her husband on a work trip last week. They went to Dubai and Doha. She brought us all back a bar of that viral Dubai chocolate. (I will NOT be sharing that with the kiddo.) As excited as I am for the chocolate, I really want to see pictures of her trip. I've never been to the Middle East and I'm not certain I will make it there. 

I have friends who travel to Belize fairly regularly. Other friends of mine vacationed in southeast Asia for their honeymoon. My bestie and her husband went to Japan. Other folks I know travel abroad for work. A couple I know do mileage runs across eastern Europe. 

Can we bring back vacation slide shows? Can we have parties where people just talk about their travels? I want to be an armchair passenger! 

You provide the pictures, and I'll make sure we all have airline-sized Biscoff cookies to nibble on while you talk about your adventures.

After a week in Florida and yesterday's travel day, I am le tired. Happily, we did lots of laundry while with my folks so that made unpacking and reentry at home a little bit easier.

I'm going to miss the kiddo's joy as she caught lizards. But at least my dad grabbed an excellent picture of her elation. That's now my desktop background. 

Gonna keep this short today, so let's just get to this week's links.

Yesterday, the kiddo and I hopped on a plane to Florida for her spring break. While she's being spoiled rotten by the grandparents, I'll be "working from home." At least DC's Emancipation Day on Wednesday is a holiday and I will get to join the glass bottom boat tour. I haven't done that since I was a kid.

​I don't know who's more excited? Me or her.  Probably me, because I know what we're in for and it's going to be a blast.

What kid activity do you want to try again?

Flying is always a bit of chaos. First, you have your own logistics of planning, packing, and getting places. On top of that, you're at the whims of weather and the airlines. I thought, when I booked my ticket for the conference I attended this week, that my direct flight to Minneapolis would be the least of my problems. No connection? No problem!

I was wrong. So very wrong.

Things started to go badly before I even left home. Several hours before my flight was due to take off, I got a notice about a delay. Fine. It happens. I dilly-dallyed a bit and then was happy to see an update that the delay would be shorter than planned. So, I wrapped things up and headed to the airport. Security was a breeze, I grabbed a tasty lunch, and I chilled at the gate. The inbound flight arrived late but still earlier than the original delay.

Then things took a turn. The gate agent announced that there was a maintenance hold. I am a jinx for these when I travel solo. About 75% of the flights I've had in the past five years end up on some sort of maintenance hold. The longest one took two hours to resolve which ended in my unexpectedly spending the night in Dallas because I missed my connection. I figured this couldn't that bad. DCA has a full maintenance shop. I know this because my University has an aviation maintenance training program in one of the hangers.

Then the waiting started. The waiting with almost no updates from the gate agents. What little they did share gave no updates about timelines or the level of concern. But then, what luck!, everything was resolved. About two hours later than planned, we boarded the flight. We even taxied... to what what I like to call a timeout area. Then we got the news, there was another maintenance issue. Back to the gate we went where we even had to deplane. 

At this point, our entire passenger group was bouncing back and forth between the gate and the customer service desk trying to get any sort of information or find alternative travel. I've had great experiences with American's customer service in the past. Not this time. My fellow passengers were all calmly asking questions. We were stonewalled, ignored, and rudely dismissed. One man next to me was yelled at for asking a simple follow-up question. It was insane. American kept saying they couldn't do anything unless the flight was cancelled. And the wouldn't even help people who had connections to make. I have never seen or received such snippy service. 

To make matters worse, we couldn't really leave the gate area for long because we didn't know if we would be boarding in 5 minutes or 5 hours. 

Nearly two hours after we deplaned, we got word that the maintenance issue was fixed.... but half of our crew timed out. We were all once again cooling our heels waiting with zero updates. Every time they opened the jetway door, we all sat up straighter hoping for some action. Finally, seven hours after we were scheduled to leave, we were allowed to board again.

After taxing to the end of the runway, we suddenly turned off. Now, I fly out DCA a lot. I know what is normal and what is not. The diversion we took that ended with us parking by the maintenance hanger was not normal. But there was no announcement. We sat around for 15 minutes. Then, we inched back on to the taxiway. Finally, an announcement from the pilot, "Flight attendants... [too long of a pause where the entire aircraft inhaled]... prepare for takeoff. [collective exhale by everyone on board]."

7.5 hours after we were supposed to leave, we were finally underway.

Oh, and then we landed in near white out conditions.

So, yes, when the first leg of my trip home offered a cheap upgrade to first class, I took it.

I will be writing a strongly worded letter to American and I won't be letting things go until I receive some compensation (at the very least some free Wi-Fi codes). I don't mind delays when they need to fix maintenance issues or replace a timed-out crew. I put safety above all else. What I mind is the surly and unreasonably rude customer service. I saw no behavior that warranted treating passengers with such disdain. 

What was the worst flying experience you've had?

Our kiddo asks a lot of "Why?" questions. Somewhere I read that, when kids ask this, what they are really saying is, "Tell me more!" So, I do.

A why always leads to me sharing a new bit of information which leads to more whys which leads to more information. On our walks to and from school we've covered everything from the weather to space, physics to dinosaurs, history to social justice issues, and plate tectonics. And this is all from a kindergartener!

But, sometimes, my generalist knowledge is strained. At some point, I simply have no more information to share. Or, in some instances, I simply don't know. (Looking at you physics.) In those instances, I've gotten comfortable saying, "I don't know, but we can look it up." Kiddo seems satisfied with that and we've often picked up books from the library to learn more together.

This is the part of parenting I was looking forward to most. I love seeing her curiosity come to life. You never what's going to catch a child's interest. 

This was a treading water kind of week.

Since we were beset with illness, my usual standards for daily life management did not apply. We delayed laundry and recycling runs. Our robot vacuum did not run. I let the piles accumulate. Straightening up was not a thing that happened.

Instead, we focused on the essentials. Did our required work things get done? Was everyone fed?  Did we occasionally bathe? Did we get decent amounts of sleep? Those are the things that mattered. Everything else could wait.

And, you know what? It was all fine. We healed while our home was a little messier.

​I have a tendency to think I'm not good enough when my life management standards slip. I need to stop doing that. The world will continue turning, our kiddo will be healthy and happy, and getting to things later is a perfectly acceptable course of action.

My library has a chat tool embedded on our website to make it easier for people to get help. It's staffed by our team of real life, reference librarians. But, oftentimes, we are mistaken for bots.

I get that. It seems that AI is in everything. Usually these moments provide a bit of levity in my day. I'm thinking of that time someone signed off with, "Thank you helpful library bot."

On Friday, we got a series of chats from high school students in Halifax. Despite my conversational tone, tailored answers, and reassurances that I was indeed a human being, one student refused to believe I was a real person. Apparently, I type too fast? I was also accused of giving canned responses.

In order to prove my humanity, this student asked me share my LinkedIn page. Honestly, that was a brilliant thing to ask for. It's a public page and my chat avatar image happens to be the same image as my LinkedIn profile.

I'm going to steal that idea as an example when I teach about AI and evaluating sources.